Mikkel Kessler signed Lonsdale glove.

Price: £65

Mikkel Kessler was born on March 1, 1979 to an English mother and Danish father. He showed his potential as a boxer from an early age. Kessler originally started campaigning as a Light-Middleweight and then Middleweight for first 22 fights of his career. He was very quickly dubbed with the nickname "Hitman" by his promoter, having won 16 of his first 22 fights by knockout (KO).

After 3 years and 22 fights, Kessler settled in the Super Middleweight division, aiming towards a world title shot and thereby opting not to aim for the European Boxing Union (EBU) title first. Kessler continued his hard hitting streak, dispatching 6 of his first 7 opponents by KO, thereby improving his record to 29-0 with 22 KO.
On November 29, 2002, Kessler fought for his first championship and defeated former World Boxing Council Super Middleweight champion Dingaan Thobela over twelve rounds to become International Boxing Association champion. He gave up this belt to fight for the more recognized WBC International title on April 11, 2003 vs. Craig Cummings. Kessler won by KO3.

He defended his newly won crown on three occasions before finally hitting it big on November 12, 2004. His stable-mate, Mads Larsen, another Danish World Class fighter, was set to challenge Manny Siaca for the World Boxing Association championship in Copenhagen. Larsen was injured in training and Kessler took the fight on short notice, winning the title. Due to injuries on both hands and his back, Kessler has only defended his title on three occasions since winning it, beating Anthony Mundine in Sydney in June 2005 Eric Lucas in January of 2006, and recently (March 24, 2007) defending his title against Librado Andrade, who was also then undefeated.

On October 14, 2006, Kessler was elevated to WBA "super champion" status after winning the WBC title in a unification battle against WBC World Champion Markus Beyer, at the Parken Stadium. He won by knockout at 2:58 in round 3. Following Kessler's elevation to super champion status, Anthony Mundine won the regular WBA World Championship in a knockout win against rival Sam Soliman on March 7, 2007.
Kessler defended his WBA/WBC titles on March 24th 2007 at the Parken Stadium against WBC mandatory challenger Librado Andrade, from Mexico. The fight seemed one-sided, with Kessler throwing multiple combinations at will. Nevertheless, the fight was in no way a runaway. Andrade refused to go down, despite being wobbled repeatedly. Kessler showed his respect for this performance by hugging Andrade at the end of the fight. The fight was scored as a shutout (120-108) by all three judges.
Following the Andrade fight, Kessler made another open challenge to WBO super middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe to fight for a unification of the titles.
After months of difficult negotiations back and forth between Kessler's promoter Mogens Palle and Calzaghe's promoter Frank Warren (including numerous accusations from both men that the other was trying to avoid the fight) Calzaghe agreed on June 1, 2007, to fight Kessler in September. The fight was later postponed until November 3. The bout took place at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium on November 3 in front of over 50,000 fans (the largest indoor boxing event in European history) and was a unification bout for the WBO/WBA/WBC/Ring Magazine Super Middleweight titles.

During the dramatic build up to the fight, Mogens Palle was hospitalized and was not allowed to see the fight (even on television) due to a heart condition, something that caused much anxiety in the Kessler camp. Kessler landed heavy blows to Calzaghe's chin in the early rounds but expended much strength in doing so, while his strongest weapon - his left jab - proved less effective than usual against the evasive southpaw, Calzaghe. In the middle rounds he began to tire, enabling Calzaghe to gain the upper hand though Kessler made a remarkable last-ditch effort in the last round, however it wasn't enough. In the end, Kessler lost the unification bout via unanimous decision, with the judges scoring the fight: 117-111, 116-112, 116-112. Yahoo! Sports scored the fight 115-113 in favour of Calzaghe. Prior to the fight, he had denied rumours that he had suffered a hand injury during training, but afterwards he admitted that he had been unable to spar for two weeks prior to the fight due to a damaged nerve in his hand, though it was fully healed by the time of the fight.

Even though Kessler lost the fight he received great credit from the experts that had been watching the fight. Kessler is said by many experts to be one of the greatest super middleweight boxers at this time. He has denied rumours that he was planning to retire, and is aiming for a further title shot in the future. Many believe that Mikkel will be the best Super Middleweight in the world, but only once Joe Calzaghe has retired. It has also been stated that Mikkel would like to avenge this fight in a rematch before Calzaghe retires, although no discussions or dates have been raised.